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Satellite that measures carbon dioxide to launch July 1

GILBERT, Ariz. — A $470 million NASA satellite built by Orbital Sciences Corp. here promises to give scientists their clearest picture yet of Earth's warming atmosphere and provide a powerful new tool for for climate-change science.

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Satellite that measures carbon dioxide to launch July 1

Fast facts on global climate change

Why is the study of carbon dioxide important to Earth's future? Here's what NASA had to say:

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Fact No. 1

Carbon dioxide is produced naturally by volcanoes, animal respiration and decay of their remains. It is also produced through human activities such as transportation, power generation and manufacturing.

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Fact No. 2

Carbon dioxide is the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas, which contributes to warming Earth's atmosphere by absorbing radiation reflected from the planet's surface.

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Fact No. 3

When forests are cleared for agriculture, carbon contained in living organisms and the soil is released, causing an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

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Fact No. 4

The carbon dioxide concentration in Earth's atmosphere has increased from about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution to more than 400 parts per million today. Levels have climbed by 20 percent over the last 50 years.

iStock

Fact No. 5

Humans add nearly 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year just by burning fossil fuels. Scientists can measure this because fossil-fuel carbon has a different atomic makeup.

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Fact No. 6

When the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide doubles, Earth's temperature rises by about five degrees Fahrenheit. Temperature increases are even greater at the planet's poles.

iStock

Fact No. 7

The U.S. produces about 14 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions. Developing nations, primarily China and India, account for more than 57 percent of all fossil-fuel emissions.

NASA

Parker Leavitt, The Arizona Republic
1:38 p.m. EDT June 26, 2014

An artist's rendering of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite, one of five new NASA Earth science missions set to launch in 2014.(Photo: NASA)

GILBERT, Ariz. — A $470 million NASA satellite built by Orbital Sciences Corp. (NYSE: ORB) here promises to give scientists their clearest picture yet of Earth's warming atmosphere and provide a powerful new tool for climate-change science after its much-anticipated launch next week.

From its perch 438 miles above Earth's surface, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 will be NASA's first satellite with the sole purpose of measuring atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to global warming.

During its two-year mission, the satellite will provide more-accurate readings of CO2 levels on global and regional scales, allowing scientists to better understand how natural processes and human activity affect concentrations of the greenhouse gas.

Using space-based measurements, scientists can look for carbon sources, like cities where CO2 is produced in mass quantities. They also expect to find carbon "sinks," areas like the Amazon rain forest where dense vegetation sucks carbon dioxide from the air to produce oxygen.

The satellite will give the world "something exceptionally valuable, something that was never possible before," said Soe Myint, an Arizona State University professor and scientist.

Global leaders will be able to see which countries, states and even cities emit the most CO2, he said.

"It will be very clear," Myint said. "Nobody will be able to deny what is going on in a particular city or province. So policy makers can make real serious decisions based on what is going on in those areas."

“It will be very clear. Nobody will be able to deny what is going on in a particular city or province.”

Soe Myint, Arizona State University

The satellite will use three spectrometers to take a new snapshot of Earth every 16 days, allowing researchers to produce detailed maps of carbon-dioxide emissions.

The instruments can detect gas levels down to 1 or 2 parts per million, which is a level of precision necessary to form accurate conclusions.

With the new data, scientists expect to learn more about how Earth's oceans exchange carbon with the atmosphere, the effect of forest fires, and the movement of fossil-fuel plumes across North America, Europe and Asia, NASA said.

"It's an extraordinary step forward in our understanding of carbon dynamics in the world," said Osvaldo Sala, professor of life sciences and sustainability at Arizona State. "It's a necessary tool if we want to somehow manage our planet and ameliorate climate change."

The satellite launch, scheduled for 2:56 a.m. PT Tuesday from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles, is NASA's second attempt to monitor CO2 levels from space.

The original Orbiting Carbon Observatory — also built by Orbital Sciences — launched from Vandenberg in February 2009 but was destroyed when it failed to separate completely from the launch vehicle. Work on the second version began in March 2010.

While many scientists are cheering the impending launch, Associate Professor Arnim Wiek at Arizona State believes the nearly $750 million spent on the two satellites could have been better spent on solution-oriented research, such as renewable energy and low-carbon urban development.

The data itself will not directly generate solutions to the problem, he said.

"While this might be a worthwhile scientific endeavor, it does not avoid or reduce any carbon-dioxide emissions," Wiek said. "Even more, it does not provide any knowledge on how to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions."

Orbital Sciences is a Virginia-based spacecraft and rocket manufacturer with a major satellite production center and 300 employees in this Phoenix suburb.

After touring Orbital Sciences in Gilbert to observe progress on the satellite last year, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said people need to look outside their own bubble and pay attention to global trends.

Information that the satellite collects will be made available to the international community, he said.

"Ideally, the satellite should have been launched a long time ago," Bolden said. "This is not new. It has just become critical because we haven't done anything in the intervening time.

"We don't live on a partitioned planet. It's one big system, and if we don't get it right, we will destroy humanity."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an organization of more than 1,300 scientists, predicts Earth's temperature will rise by 2.5 to 10 degrees during the next century.

Last month was Earth's hottest May in recorded history with global temperatures about 1.33 degrees above the 20th century average, according to a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As a result, scientists expect snow-covered areas will continue contracting, permafrost will thaw and tropical cyclones will grow more intense. Rainfall patterns likely will shift as some areas experience drought and others become more saturated.

While human-produced carbon emissions compose only a small part of the global gas levels, the ever-increasing burning of fossil fuels has thrown off Earth's natural cycle, resulting in the warming of the planet, Sala said.

Humans add nearly 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year just by burning fossil fuels, NASA says. Scientists can measure this because fossil-fuel carbon has a different atomic makeup.

Technicians prepare the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 instrument for shipping. The instrument consists of three parallel, high-resolution spectrometers, integrated into a common structure and fed by a common telescope. (Photo: NASA handout)

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More about global climate change

Why is the study of carbon dioxide important to Earth's future? Here's what NASA had to say about carbon dioxide:

• Volcanoes, animal respiration and decay of their remains produce carbon dioxide naturally. It is also produced through human activities such as transportation, power generation and manufacturing.

• Carbon dioxide is the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas, which contributes to warming Earth's atmosphere by absorbing radiation reflected from the planet's surface.

• When forests are cleared for agriculture, carbon contained in living organisms and the soil is released, causing an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels.

• The CO2 concentration in Earth's atmosphere has increased from about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution to more than 400 parts per million today. Levels have climbed 20% in the past 50 years.

• Humans add nearly 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year just by burning fossil fuels. Scientists can measure this because fossil-fuel carbon has a different atomic makeup.

• When the amount of atmsopheric carbon dioxide doubles, Earth's temperature rises by about 5°F. Temperature increases are even greater at the planet's poles.

• The USA produces about 14% of all CO2 emissions. Developing nations, primarily China and India, account for more than 57% of all fossil-fuel emissions.